Reading, Writing and Rotten.

To borrow a phrase from Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of public education.... That isn't to say public education is all bad, but it is no longer possible to hide the stench of the compost heap of corrupt leftist, progressive, relativist, revisionist, atheistic and amoral social and educational philosophies, attitudes, practices and people that pervade public education today.

Rotten School News

2013-11-05 Middle school football coach plans Hooters party for team — "Corbett Middle School [Portland, OR] football coach Randall Burbach has been fired for planning an awards dinner at a Jantzen Beach Hooters...." [Big kudos to the school administrators that fired the coach. Regarding the coach, it is people like Randall Burbach that are rotting our educational system and society.]

2013-10-17 Teacher fired for allegedly giving minors alcohol, condoms — "A South Florida teacher has been fired after she is accused of providing students with alcohol and condoms. The Miami-Dade School Board terminated Isabel Diaz Almaraz on Wednesday for acting inappropriately with students.... Almaraz was a full-time dance teacher at South Miami High School. The district first began to investigate Almaraz because of several complaints from parents...." [Kudos to the school district for firing the teacher. Teacher misbehavior (too nice a word) is way too common. There should be near-zero tolerance for this type of bad behavior from teachers.]

2013-10-17 Substitute teacher on heroin passes out in class — "Police say a substitute teacher at a Pittsburgh-area high school took heroin before work and passed out in class. KDKA-TV reports that Bellevue Police Sgt. Mike Hudson says 26-year-old Christopher Chiappetta, of Pittsburgh, was arrested Wednesday after he passed out in front of 11 students. Authorities say they found four baggies of heroin in Chiappetta's pocket and marijuana in his car, and that he confessed to using heroin around 6 a.m. Wednesday." [Just a substitute teacher... But substitute teachers often become full-time teachers. Someone who does heroin (or any illicit drug) is too stupid to be a teacher. Seems teachers are getting dumber, which would partially explain poor educational outcomes and America's low education rankings.]

2013-10-16 Parents outraged over highly intrusive school survey — "What's your religion? Your sexual orientation? Your parents' political affiliation? Should "assault rifles" be banned? Who's to blame for the government shutdown? Do these sound like questions that high school sophomores should have to answer? A Maryland high school that is "Common Core" compliant — as described to TheBlaze by a representative — allegedly administered a survey to its sophomore class that pried for personal information...." [Schools have zero business asking for this kind of information from students. None of the info has anything at all to do with the education the students should be getting. It is high time that schools returned their focus to the fundamentals, and stopped trying to indoctrinate students socially and politically with progressive propaganda.]

2013-10-16 Cartoon bomb drawing gets special-needs student suspended — "A South Carolina mother says her son was suspended for drawing a picture of a cartoon bomb at home and bringing it to school. Amy Parham [said] her 13-year-old son, Rhett, was
suspended from Hillcrest Middle School after showing the drawing to
classmates, who reported him to administrators.... 'They knew he was not actually having a bomb, creating or making a bomb.
But that they could not go with out making an example of him and take
some type of action because they were worried about their perception'...." [Zero tolerance = zero brains... Just drawing a picture of a bomb, or of a gun, or knife, is absolutely not grounds for suspending a student, and certainly no child should be "made an example of" in order to preserve somebody's image. The administrators knew there was no danger, therefore they should have taken no action.]

2013-10-13 School slaps teen for doing the right thing — "North Andover [MA] High School stripped Erin Cox, above, of her position as captain of the volleyball team and suspended her for five games after she got swept up in an underage drinking bust while picking up a friend who was too drunk to drive at a party just as police arrived...." [Another case of school administrators with zero brains enforcing an idiotic zero tolerance policy.]

2013-10-13High school play features bestiality and incest — "Let's say your house is humming along in first weeks of a brand-new high school year, and one day you find out your kid’s in an acting class that's putting on a play with some questionable content. Like man-in-love-with-a-goat questionable. Like bestiality questionable. Incest, too. And perhaps unsurprisingly, other sexually explicit content and a fair dose of swear words. All acted out and starring teenagers. That's the news many parents received when it came to light that drama teacher Andrew Cupo of Cactus Shadows High School in Scottsdale, Ariz., introduced students in an advanced acting class to an absurdist play called 'The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?' by Edward Albee." [My first thought? What kind of a pervert has the school unleashed upon impressionable children? My second thought: That kind of absolute trash has no place in a high school, even if parents are "notified" (which they were not).]

2013-10-10 Teacher urges students to fail, resigns — "A Reynoldsburg [Ohio] middle-school teacher who is accused of telling her gifted students to fail a science pretest ... resigned yesterday.... The science assessment was part of the district's new evaluation system, where teachers will be graded in part by how much their students improve over the school year. Student academic growth accounts for half of a teacher’s evaluation...." [It goes without saying that this "teacher" should be out of a job, and probably should never teach again. Regarding the district's evaluation of teachers based on student improvement, I'm not a fan. Students — and their teachers — should be evaluated on achieving high standards in reading, writing and math, not on mere improvement.]

2013-10-10 Teacher makes students decide who lives, who dies — "A classroom of 14 and 15-year-old Illinois high school students was assigned the task of deciding the fate of ten fictional characters in an exercise that critics called a lesson in death panels.... The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis.... But there's a problem. The local hospital only has enough machines to support six patients." [There was a time in America when the obvious answer to such a "dilemma" was to harness the power of capitalism and build more dialysis machines. In a Socialist world, however, the reality is shortages of just about everything, and, ultimately, yes, death panels. But, putting aside that stark eventuality, I can't help but wonder why we can't just focus on teaching kids, the four R's: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and RESPECT — especially respect for human life and liberty.]

2013-10-03 School forces student to change shirt with silhouette of a hunter — "...Haley Bullwinkle ... never thought her [shirt] choice would get her sent to the office with a request to change her so-called 'violent' attire. Her shirt showed the silhouette of a hunter with the words 'National Rifle Association of America: Protecting America's Traditions Since 1871." ... Haley was sent to the principal's office and was given a school-issued shirt to change into." [Yet another irrational attack on both First and Second Amendment rights. The leftists are doing everything they can to brainwash our children with the bone-headed belief that guns are evil.]

2013-10-03 School principal asks police officer not to wear uniform — "He's not the type of armed man on campus you'd expect parents to be concerned about -- but apparently a police officer dropping off his daughter at school was just too scary for some parents in Mesa. And the school principal actually called that officer to ask him not to wear his uniform on campus ever again....."[Even worse than the silly, irrational parents that were concerned about a police officer carrying a gun is the mindless principal who caved to their outlandish request.]

2013-09-27 School shows students pro-Obama I Pledge video — A Wisconsin middle school in the Hudson School District played the pro-Obama "I Pledge" video as part of their Peace One Day event. The video features brainless celebrities pledging allegiance to Barack Obama. For example, rock singer Anthony Kiedis says "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama", while actress Demi Moore proclaims "I pledge to be a servant to our president." It is mind-boggling that anybody would make such idiotic pledges, and it is outrageous that supposedly intelligent school administrators would suppose for even one second that showing such brazen outlandish political propaganda in school would ever be appropriate. Such crap is reminiscent of Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR, and is contrary to every ideal that founded and made America great.

2013-09-26 LA school system's free IPAD debacle — "It took exactly one week for nearly 300 students at Roosevelt High School to hack through security so they could surf the Web on their new school-issued iPads, raising new concerns about a plan to distribute the devices to all students in the district...." [Once again, government proves its incompetence when it comes to... well, anything at all. You want inefficiency? Implementation problems? Waste? Loads of unintended consequences? Then let the government do it. As Ronald Reagan once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"]

2013-09-25 Sixth-graders learn all about Jay-Z, Big Pimpin' — "Students at a Southaven, Miss. middle school were educated in the 'Big Pimpin' thug life of Jay-Z, and the school district can't imagine why anyone would object to lessons on reading, writing and rapping...." [Who in their right mind presents as a role model to children a crude, profane man who glorifies prostitution, gangs and thuggery?]

2013-09-20 Parent arrested on trumped-up charges for speaking out against common core at forum — "Robert Small said he wanted to express his dismay over the introduction
of a new school curriculum at a public forum Thursday night in Towson,
but instead the Ellicott City parent was pulled out of the meeting,
arrested and charged with second-degree assault of a police officer...." [Assault of a police officer???? Outrageous. Watch the video. Mr. Small did nothing even remotely close to assault, never mind that the brute who "arrested him" was an off-duty officer working as a security guard. As he was led out, Mr. Small cried out to the other people, "Don't stand for this. You are sitting here like cattle. Is this America?" Good question. Where is the courage of people to stand against tyranny? Today's America is a mere remnant of the America that defeated Nazism, and even of the more recent America that won — yes WON — the Cold War. We are afraid. Afraid of the police state that our behemoth government is shackling us with.]

2013-09-19 Ultra-liberal professor's vulgar rant disrupts college Republican meeting — "From that great bastion of academic freedom known as Temple University comes another example of a liberal professor bullying conservative students with a bevy of F-bombs... Joseph Schwartz, a political science professor [and] card-carrying Democratic Socialist ... along with a handful of his followers, took over a right- to-work discussion hosted by Temple's College Republicans..." [I try to avoid personal attacks, but sometimes it's impossible, so here goes: "Professor" Joseph Schwartz is an imbecile. First of all, because he is a Socialist, second, because he opposes right-to-work laws, and third, because he doesn't have a shred of decency or courtesy. If I was President of Temple University he'd be looking for a new job.]

2013-09-18 Student suspended 10 days for accidentally bringing pocket knife to football game — "A 16-year-old boy was suspended this week for reporting to a security guard at a Friday night football game that he had a pocket knife with him. [He] was asked to leave the game immediately... On Monday, he was handed a 10-day out-of-school suspension." [Ridiculous. The security guard should have simply escorted the young man to the gate so the knife could be put in his car or brought home, and then he should have allowed the boy to return to the game. Instead, he reported him to the principal, who committed the second injustice, giving the boy a suspension. A zero tolerance policy? I have zero tolerance for idiotic zero tolerance policies.]

2013-08-30 Jail in Germany for home-schooling — "The Romeike family's very public legal battle has brought to light the homeschooling community's ongoing battle inside Germany. Educating children in this manner is illegal in the European nation, which led Uwe and Hannelore Romeike to inevitably seek refuge. While the family's battle for asylum in the U.S. continues, there’s another story coming out of Germany that will likely send chills down the spines of homeschooling advocates. On Thursday, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich reportedly saw authorities storm their home and remove their four children, ages seven to 14. The offense? Continuing to homeschool their children, despite the government's laws against doing so." [Absolutely outrageous, and an extremely blatant violation of fundamental rights. By all the laws of God and nature, parents MUST have the privilege to choose to home school their children. Any government that denies that right is despotic and evil. Period.]

Truth is Reason Articles

Other Commentary

Common Core: A Lesson Plan for Raising Up Compliant, Non-Thinking Citizens — "You can intimidate the citizenry into obedience through force.... You can manipulate them into marching in lockstep with your dictates through the use of propaganda and carefully timed fear tactics about threats to their safety.... Or you can indoctrinate them into compliance from an early age through the schools, discouraging them from thinking for themselves while rewarding them for regurgitating whatever the government, through its so-called educational standards, dictates they should be taught." [more]